Life at 3 miles an Hour

I’m a fan of tug boats. I’ve always admired them somewhat, but it’s become a genuine passion of mine since moving to the Northwest. This morning I’m encouraged as I see another one steadily plying it’s way through the waters of the Sound, dutifully and reliably dragging in its wake a well used, well rusted barge overflowing with whatever barges tend to overflow with. I don’t hold the same admiration for barges. In fact, I don’t really appreciate them at all. If I ever won the lottery, one of the first selfish items that I’d purchase would be a tug boat. The main problem with this plan is that I don’t play the lottery, but that’s another story for another time.  I’ve often considered taking a sabbatical from the pastoral thing for a few months of real work on a tug. My biggest obstacle (apart from testing my wife’s patience) would be that I would have no idea what I was doing on a tug. I’d probably not be of much use. However, if I bought it, I’d own it and then who care...

It’s somewhat humbling when you realize that the things you hold dear in life are not all that significant to others. It can be humbling, it can be disturbing, and it can even be maddening. I find myself many times distraught after giving some big dissertation on another brilliant discovery that I’ve made, only to have the person I’m revealing this to say something like “What does this have to do with me?”. They don’t get it. They don’t appreciate it. Maybe it’s just that they don’t want to better themselves. I tell myself this to soothe my ego. I can almost hear my angel laughing hysterically. His response to my brilliance would most likely be “duh, look who just caught up”. After all, he knows what I too often have forgotten, that “there’s nothing new under the sun.” I find this whole process of thinking oneself brilliantly enlightened to be an occupational hazard. My greatest fear as a speaker and teacher of God’s word is for people to roll their eyes and say “whatever.” ...

George Carlin once observed, on a flight across the United States, that everyone lives in their own box of stuff. I’ve flown many times across the country and every time I look down on a clear day I’m reminded of the same thing. We all live, if we’re fortunate enough, in a box of some sort which is mainly a collection of our stuff. When I was young there were times that I could climb into my toy box and there reside amongst my stuff. When the box got too full of stuff, I’d have to get a bigger box. What was I to do? It never occurred to my child sized self-centeredness that I could actually get rid of some of my “stuff” and therefore be content in the same size box. My how some things do not change easily. Now I basically still live in my toy box. It’s a bit bigger and I have to share it, but it really is a toy box. I’d like to say that I’ve grown up a bit and learned to live within my box. The truth is that I’m only determined to stay in this box because, in the area that I...

How much is enough? It’s one of those questions like, “What came first, the chicken or the egg?”. It’s not really answerable. The answer for most is “just a bit more”. Then you could ask “What defines a bit?”. It certainly is a deep question though. In fact the answer to it probably defines the existence of a great many people who I’ve encountered in my life time. I’ve wrestled with it… haven’t defeated it though. In my more pious moments I might try to think that I could say “enough is right now, it’s my existence, I have reached contentment”. That would be a load of crap though, at least it wouldn’t be true five minutes after I thought it. It causes me to wonder though what really drives us? Is it the quest for enough? I don’t mean “enough” in a specific sense, rather “enough” in a broad sense…enough materially, enough financially, enough relationally, even enough spiritually. We’re never really satisfied are we? That’s not necessarily a bad thing. It just depends on w...